


Choosing Light

by wintersheir



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Femdom, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Interrogation, Introspection, Mind Manipulation, Non-Sexual Bondage, Not Mad Just Disappointed, The Force, Torture, Turnabout is Fair Play, Unsolicited Concrit Always Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 15:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5830888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersheir/pseuds/wintersheir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Force can uncover secrets—past, future, truth, lies—but it will reveal as much about the user as the target.<br/>–The Twelfth Codex</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choosing Light

“I can probe his mind,” she said, excited. “I can read his thoughts like he tried to. I can _make_ him tell us where Snoke is!”

Master Luke’s face crumpled, a lifetime of hurt in his eyes, galaxies of it; she wanted to snatch back her words. She wanted to see nothing but delight on that lined face, and she had seen it in their months together, and amusement, stillness, pique—and sorrow. He was the hermit, still, robed and hooded, long-ago maimed and surrounded by the dead and their noisy ghosts. And even when she could make him smile there would be oceans between them.

“Do not speak to me of that again,” he said, finally, harshly.

Rey’s contrition withered. “Why not?” she demanded. She threw his words back at him: “Why not turn his weapons on him? Is the technique dark or the user? Is it wrong to pick up your enemy’s blaster?”

Luke looked a thousand years old at that; he raised a hand—the flesh one—and covered his mouth, searching for words that had left him in his long silence.

She waited.

Too long. “He’s weak, starved, injured—and I’ve been training. I could do it, I could do it safely.” _You were desperate, then, turning it against him—and_ he _stopped,_ she reminded herself. She shook her head.

“Rey,” Master Luke said, “I forbid this. Please. Let’s try to get in contact with Leia again.”

* * *

Rey went hooded through the temple ruins, padding silently through the halls that hollowed out the rocky island. Dozens of adherents had lived here in days long forgotten, the rooms and pathways lit by soft light and filled with the susurrus of monastic discussion.

She crept into the outbuilding before the sun rose; it had been used for curing fish and was stuffy with the smell of salt and smoke and blood.

Kylo Ren didn’t stir as she opened and closed the door, or when she set a lamp on a high shelf. He lay on an old cot of Luke’s, surplus from the rebellion, the plasteel dull after years of use and humidity.

He had been imposing, once: tall and masked and black-robed with a devil’s voice, but here his hair was greasy and tangled and his starved thinness brought to mind dolls and puppets.

He rolled over, blinked at her for longer than seemed reasonable. “The scavenger girl,” he muttered. “Where—” He raised a hand to his face, and, his wrists bound, it brought the other one; he stared at the cords.

A wave of power washed over her, a frightening strength—but unfocused, a random lashing-out. Rey put out her hands and pressed down with the Force, an even pressure until he lay flat again and subsided.

He pulled again, narrower, a hand flexing, and she heard a ringing in her ears as she pushed back. _I am earth, I am bedrock; the mountain does not move._ And she pushed more—saw his back arch, saw him gasp—and, dizzy, she let him go, let him breathe again.

Kylo Ren laughed a little, panting. “You did find a teacher after all,” he said.

She ignored him, taking off her cloak and checking the charge on her blaster. Her heart was hammering, seeing him again: torturer, murderer a dozen times over. She thought of Starkiller Base; she thought of the bridge; and she found that little core of hate, of killing rage that she had buried, that Jedi teachings required she set aside.

She had not.

He watched her stalk around the room. “He was my teacher, too,” he rasped. “A foolish old man dreaming hopeless dreams, unable to see what was right in front of him. Weak. Worthless.”

“Shut up,” Rey snapped, whirling. “Where is Snoke?”

“The supreme leader moves from shadow to shadow, bathed in perfect darkness…” he said dreamily. “Generals and queens and bosses cannot find him. What hope do a scavenger and an old, old man have of doing what they cannot?”

“Where did you come from?”

“A boy died. A boy died and a man was born.”

She struck him with the side of her hand, a stinging blow more than a damaging one. _Get mad, Dark Side. Show me. Show me._

He worked his jaw, a little color coming into his wan face, but he said no more, settling into the cot with his bound hands on his chest.

“What _base_ did you fly out of?”

Nothing.

“You _will_ tell me the location of Supreme Leader Snoke.”

He laughed. “Ooh, I felt that. Again, scavenger.”

She hit him again, harder. He grunted; his tongue traced the line of his teeth. His eyes flicked onto her and looked away; he smirked a little, thinking of something.

She dumped him off the cot all at once and straddled him, trying not to touch him except with her hands, straight-arm pressing down on his arms and throat.

His eyebrows went right up into his hair. “Did you see this in a holo? Not that I’m not flattered, but I have to tell you that it doesn’t—”

He screeched as she broke one of his fingers; he tried to buck her off but she had her whole weight on him, muscled from training and plump from the absurd wealth of water that surrounded them. She put her knee in his stomach, hard, and he subsided, gasping.

“Tell me.”

She broke another finger; he screamed a little but did nothing, breathed harder and faster. He Force-pushed at her again but it was wind, confused breezes. She bore down, the Force doubling her weight on him.

“Do you think I am a stranger to pain?” Kylo Ren gasped out. “I have had worse than this, ten times worse—Darth Vader burned and every wound made him stronger—you are, even now, feeding my hate—”

“Shut _up._ ” She hit him again, his lip splitting. She rose, kicked him over, put her boot on his head and ground his cheek on the sandy stone. Hauled him up—saints, he was as light as a toy—back on the pallet again.

He panted, watching her; emotion passed nakedly over his face, but she saw exhaustion, not anger, or not enough of it.

“Tell me where he is,” Rey whispered, trying another tack. “There’s food and bacta back at the temple.”

His eyes hardened. “Do you think you can buy me with trifles? I have been worse-used by my allies.” He tried to spit; his mouth twisted, looking at her. “Use the Force, scavenger.”

She bound him hand and foot to the hut’s composite support beams, the cords tight on his skinny wrists and ankles.

She sat and she sought out the hidden lines of the Force that surrounded—everything, and still, still she felt the wonder of it: the stone, the sky, the moss and lichen and birds and fish, lines plunging into the sea, into the planet, into the hearts of stars.

She found them around Kylo Ren, deep and opaque as a river of sand. She reached out and felt him recoil, the deadly currents whirling, and she clutched at his thoughts, jarred them, willed memory to the surface.

_Where is Snoke?_

She saw snatches of imagery: ship controls, dark-paneled halls, a looming figure and a stunted one; rain, fire, stinging sadness; soft child’s memories and distant tall adults. She broke off; nothing that made sense or that she recognized.

“Not bad for a beginner,” he said, but there was a little quaver in his voice.

She took out a knife, crescent-shaped for gutting fish, and she felt a little rill of satisfaction at the fear that crossed his face. She brought it to his neck and his breath hitched; he Force-pushed at it ineffectually.

She started cutting through his clothes.

“Stop—” he croaked, biting off the word and just struggling instead.

She twisted his ear, made him jerk away. Kept cutting.

It had been fine material once, not the cheapest possible machine-extruded stuff she was used to. He’d been wearing it for weeks—she remembered the smell after she’d peeled open the wreckage with a lightsaber, hot metal and then a stench of feet and burning meat. She tossed his tunic aside.

He huddled to the side, not looking at her, shrinking away. His skin was grub-pale, streaked and dotted with wounds old and new. One arm had a fine branching scar on it like a tree, like white roots. He had a blaster wound she’d given him, shiny and blistered.

She pitied him, suddenly: thin with his sunken eyes and hollow belly, all alone with a woman with a knife.

The scars were a history, from the oldest and faintest to a few that looked weeks old, still red and angry. And then of course the bruises from the crash, purple and green and yellow where the harness had bit into him; a scatter of burns from the ruined electronics of the ship; scabbed-over cuts from impact and ferroceramic shrapnel. She put a hand out, unthinking, to check a wound with a star of red lines around it, and then snatched it back.

_I shouldn’t—_

_I should._

_I can take whatever I want, you know._

She touched the tree-scar, ran a work-callused fingertip along it, and he shuddered, cringing away.

“What did this?” she said, not really expecting him to answer.

“Lightning,” he whispered. “Dark lightning. A secret power—I was—honored, to receive it. I had transgressed. It brought me back to the path.”

“Whose power? Snoke’s?” She reached out, tried to grasp what roiled to the surface. Memories flicked past: Master Luke, the supreme leader’s gremlin face, a holo of Darth Vader—

“Stop it!” he hissed. He pawed at her memories—he had nothing left and he still had the power to jar a few loose: the sea; training with the saber; Master Luke chiding her, the embarrassment still stinging.

She hit him hard, reflexively: he recoiled, bindings pulling him back and the knots tightening cruelly, and she dove in, reckless—

_rain and darkness_  
_the red saber falling in judgement_  
_the old man on his knees; useless, useless_  
_the students falling like leaves_  
_what use their training, what use their meditation and reflection_  
_they all died the same_

_a boy, a little boy walking with his father and mother_  
_the boy ran ahead and his mother called to him_  
_his mother, her hair braided, not tall but filling up the memory_  
_his father with a quirked smile, smelling like exhaust and machines_  
_that day in the gardens with the leaves all falling_  
_Ben, Ben, Ben_

Rey fell, jamming her elbow against the floor, and she came back to herself, her eyes aching and tears falling freely.

His were, too; he looked away, trying to hide his face against his tied, upraised arm.

She snarled and lifted him, pushed his doll’s body against the wall, could barely speak against the raw fury in her. “You stupid—you petty—”

“Weak,” he said, voice breaking. “I hated—”

“Look at them! _Look at them!_ You had this and you squandered it, you filth—” _You had what I never had. You had what I never will._ “You name me scavenger? I name you thief—murderer—disgusting—” She punctuated each word with a blow, and she felt a dreadful satisfaction at each cry, each jerk of his body.

Rey stalked around the room, the hate throbbing under her sternum. “Why? _Why_? You childish—” She thought of bullies, children smashing small things to see them die. “Look at me. _Look at me._ You ruined _everything_ ,” she snarled.

His breath whistled through his broken nose. “Ben Organa was a child,” he said, around the blood. “Frightened. Alone. Told no: don’t feel. Don’t think. The Dark Side gave Kylo Ren purpose. Do feel—relish in that anger—it makes you powerful. Don’t you feel it?”

Rey yanked his hair, made him look at her. “I am _not_ like you, you sick—”

“Aren’t you? Aren’t you?” His eyes crinkled with evil mirth. “How many of the First Order died by your hand, by your actions—what is _this_? What is this, scavenger?”

He shrieked deliciously when she stabbed him in the blaster burn.

She listened to him breathe, shallowly; each breath moved the knife a little in the meat of his shoulder. _Is it still familiar, Dark Side?_ A few waves of Force passed over her, harmless, uncontrolled.

Rey took out a pair of clippers and cut down the outside of one of his trouser legs.

“Stop. Stop. Don’t take—stop looking—” He stopped, took huge, shaking breaths, willed himself quiet.

She’d barely gotten a few centimeters down the garment. She stood close to him, clippers poised, stared him down. “ _Beg me_ ,” she said.

His head snapped around, hate on every line of his long face, masked with blood. She watched him, cut further, and wished she could have made a holo of his absurd, angry face crumpling in shame and disgust. _Over clothes? Really? Really?_ He shuddered and looked away, turning away from her as much as he could in the bonds.

“Last chance,” she murmured.

“You don’t have… the spine…”

She pulled out the knife, twisting it, and she enjoyed the half-sob that accompanied each breath following. She put out her hand, the Force swirling around her as strong as steel, and she tightened bands of it around his throat.

Cool dawn air spilled into the hut, grown close and warm with body heat and exertion.

She turned, saw Master Luke taking in the scene.

“Rey… what are you _doing_?”

Something fell out of the bottom of her stomach; she saw her own hands, blood-spattered, dropped the knife as if burned by it; saw Kylo Ren and his ruined body and felt only nausea and sick dread.

“I was… I was…”

Master Luke swept his hand aside. “Leave, Rey. Now.”

She fled out the door.

* * *

She found Master Luke by the graves, later. He didn’t look at her for a long time.

She sat and waited on the moss. The stones stretched into the sky, a cathedral of air a little marred by the lichen and birdlime. The sea was getting choppy; rain, later, out of the north.

Rey was startled out of her reverie by Luke putting down his cloak and sitting beside her, the old-style servos in his hand working noisily.

After a while, he said, “When I was setting up the new temple, I was overwhelmed by some of the… _organizational_ problems of having young students. I put up notices and sent holo-messages that still astound me. I will never forget what the main dormitory smelled like after someone smuggled in Corellian brandy.

“But I really, truly never thought I’d have to add ‘don’t torture prisoners’ to the code of conduct.”

She couldn’t speak; she stared out at the sea, biting her lip until she tasted blood. “I don’t know what _happened_ ,” she whispered.

He sat with her, but his limbs were tight, angry—it was a meditative pose, but serenity eluded him.

“There is an old proverb: one may gaze into the void, and it may gain one power and valuable insight, but know… know that it, too, gazes into the gazer.”

“Am I… he… am I corrupted?” she breathed. Broken. Tainted. Garbage. The light turning from her. That line of light, stretching unbroken over countless milennia, much narrowed, much diminished, and… ended at last.

“There is always a choice.”

Rey looked at her hands, at the tears falling, a terrible waste of water. “Don't you think I made it?”

Master Luke sighed, some of the anger going out of him. “My father… well, you know the story.” The history, unsaid, unspooled between them: a decade and a half of murder, of torture, of unutterable destruction.

“And at the end, at the very end, he chose light.”

“Was it enough?” Rey heard herself say.

Luke smiled sadly, flicked his prosthetic hand with a fingernail. “My nephew chose darkness,” he said, “and has gone on choosing it, even as I begged him, even as”—his voice wavered a little—“his parents begged him.

“Today… you chose darkness. But tomorrow I hope you will choose light. Even when it’s hard. Even when he hurt you first.”

Rey scrubbed her eyes with her knuckles, and words spilled out, finally. “I hate him. He had everything. He had everything and he destroyed it and he swooped in just in time to—” _Starkiller Base. The bridge._ “And he— _your students_ —he cut them to pieces! He slaughtered them one by one, and you can stand there and look at him!”

Master Luke looked out to the horizon; sorrow you could drown in, and yet, that same rueful, gentle look. “And I choose light. I have one more student, and for her I yet choose light.”

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: There are some nouns from Wookieepedia added for flavor but I have only the most tenuous familiarity with the EU and non-movie canon. Any resemblance to those sources is luck or a good guess.
> 
> I don't know what it says about me that I sit down with the goal of writing PWP for once and instead produce introspective violence with a couple of innuendos and a Robot Chicken reference, but that's my life I guess.


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